LBL Currents -- October 7, 1994

White House science advisor tours LBL

By Jeffery Kahn, JBKahn@lbl.gov

White House Science Advisor John Gibbons, a major player in the
effort to reshape the nation's research and development infrastructure, visited
LBL on September 30.

Gibbons, the assistant to the President for Science and Technology and director
of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said he was
impressed both with the range and quality of research underway here.

Gibbons and LBL Director Charles Shank discussed the future of the United
States' R&D effort, a subject currently under review by the National
Science and Technology Council, chaired by President Clinton. Gibbons was
particularly interested in Shank's view of the future of the national
laboratories, and how the labs fit into this picture.

Gibbons, who has a Ph.D. in physics from Duke University, not only is charged
with advising the President, but also with coordinating science and technology
policy throughout the federal government. Prior to assuming his present posts,
he directed the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment for 13 years.

While providing Gibbons an overview of LBL, Shank talked about the on-going
expansion of life sciences research here and the continued growth likely in the
decade ahead. Focusing on the Human Genome Project, he described the
partnership between the Department of Energy and the National Institutes of
Health, which fund the genome project. Shank said this collaboration has been
so successful that it could serve as a model for future federal interagency
cooperation.

During a tour of the Advanced Light Source, Gibbons heard brief presentations
on current research, which ranges from basic chemistry to micro-machining to
geochemistry and biology. He said he was impressed by the versatility of the
ALS.

AFRD Director Bill Barletta briefed Gibbons on the proposal to construct a $58
million ILSE (Induction Linac Systems Experiments) accelerator at LBL. The
project has been designed to resolve questions about inertial-confinement
fusion in which pellets of thermonuclear fuel are compressed to the point of
ignition by beams of heavy ions.

Barletta and Shank noted that even though scientific reviews of ILSE have been
uniformly favorable and the approach is cost-competitive, the program has been
underfunded. Currently, the lion's share of funding for fusion energy goes to
magnetic fusion programs.

Gibbons spent 15 years as a researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and did
pioneering studies on energy efficiency and minimizing the environmental
impacts of energy production and consumption. Familiar with a number of the
programs in LBL's Energy and Environment Division, he was particularly
interested in seeing the sulfur molecular emitter lamp being developed here.

Firing up the lamp, E&E's Francis Rubinstein called it "the lamp of the
future," noting that it does not contain mercury, and that the spectrum of
light it produces can be controlled. From behind sunglasses, Gibbons said he
was amazed at its efficiency, which is 10 times that of an incandescent bulb.

Materials Sciences Division Director Daniel Chemla also briefed Gibbons. He
used a sampling of current research--high-temperature superconducting
magneto-cardiograms, nano-crystal growth, and pathogen-detecting films--to make
the case for the critical importance of material science research to the nation
and to its economy. Federal support for basic science in this field has eroded
significantly, Chemla said. One result is that research facilities that are
supposed to be state-of-the art are operating with outdated equipment.

Chemla stressed that U.S. industry no longer is investing in long term
research. Either the U.S. makes this investment, he said, or ultimately the
nation will face the consequences of living off of past discoveries.

The Greening of the Presidio

By Diane LaMacchia, DMLaMacchia@lbl.gov

As a former Army post, the Presidio of San Francisco is a symbol
of the shift away from military conflict to a united international fight on
behalf of the environment. Now that the Presidio is a national park, there are
plans for it to become an international environmental center, focusing on
sustainable design.

"Sustainable design means that what you do today doesn't have a negative impact
on the future," says mechanical engineer Dale Sartor of the Energy and
Environment Division. To champion energy programs at the Presidio, Sartor took
a year's leave of absence from LBL to serve as a technical advisor to the
Presidio Council, a planning group set up by the Golden Gate National Park
Association.

Sartor focused on the energy management of the Presidio itself, working to make
it exemplary of the ideas that will be fostered by the park's
environmentally-oriented tenants. Now Sartor has been named to head a new
Applications Team in LBL's Energy and Environment Division. The "A-Team" will
employ the talents of engineers from the Facilities Department and researchers
from E&E to increase the use of energy-saving and environmental
technologies.

"We're going to help federal agencies and others meet energy savings goals by
applying the knowledge and expertise of the national labs," Sartor says. "The
Presidio's going to be a flagship project for the A-Team."

On September 24, Vice President Al Gore officially launched the Presidio's
transition to a national park and announced that it will serve as a model of
new environmental technologies, featuring energy-efficient buildings and clean
transportation systems. Several multi-agency agreements were announced,
including the establishment of the Energy Efficiency Training Center. The
center's creation was largely initiated by LBL scientists Mark Levine and
Stephen Wiel (see Sept. 23, 1994 Currents).

In the spirit of getting their own house in order, the Department of the
Interior signed a joint resolution with DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and
Renewable Energy and the Federal Energy Management Program for the "Greening of
the Presidio." The parties agreed to work together to make the Presidio a
showcase of energy efficiency and environmentally-sound energy practices.

"Western countries have to take some leadership not only to clean up their own
act but to encourage sustainable development throughout the world," Sartor
says. "It's much easier to point to the Brazilians cutting down their
rain forests than to look at what we do here."

The Presidio contains a large number of buildings--many of them old and energy
intensive--amounting to a some six million square feet of space. It is an ideal
site for energy-efficiency demonstration and research projects.

"The Presidio has everything a small village has: a post office, bank, gas
station, store, movie theater, bowling alley, golf course, burger shack, and
1,200 residential units," Sartor says. "This allows for research at a community
scale."

Sartor says his biggest accomplishment during his year with the Presidio
Council was the Park Service's signing of a contract with Pacific Gas and
Electric for the utility to provide significant financial incentives for an
energy management program. This is the first such contract signed in
California.

"As the Park Service implements conservation, PG&E will pay for measured
performance over a 10-year period," Sartor says. "They will pay for negative
watts--worth about $10 million to the Presidio."

The conservation measures Sartor has recommended include lighting retrofits and
the installation of lighting and heating controls for buildings.

One of the Presidio's first tenants will be the Tides Foundation, an
environmentally-oriented philanthropic organization that will occupy 75,000
square feet of space with its new Thoreau Center for Sustainability.
Organizations participating in the Thoreau Center will include the Energy
Foundation and the Exploratorium's Learning Studio Program.

"They want the building to be indicative of the concepts they're talking
about," Sartor says. The A-Team will identify opportunities for lighting
retrofits, temperature and lighting controls, window treatments such as tinted
glass, and high efficiency heating systems, while balancing cost, efficiency,
and historical preservation.

In addition to its work with the Presidio, the A-Team is developing work with
other agencies. It already has a contract with the Federal Aviation
Administration to look at airport control towers, beginning with the Houston
airport. The team will characterize the tower from an energy-use standpoint,
and identify possible energy-saving technologies and applications and bring
them together.

Evan Mills, assistant head of LBL's Center for Building Science, and E&E's
Bill Carroll were instrumental in creating the A-Team.

PHOTO CAPTION -- Sprawling at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge, the
Presidio is poised to become an international environmental center, with
help from LBL. Photo by Ernest Braun

Shank key figure in collaboration between energy, education
labs

By Diane LaMacchia, DMLaMacchia@lbl.gov

LBL Director Charles Shank has been named co-chair of a steering
committee charged with improving collaboration between the Department of
Education's regional educational laboratories and the Department of Energy's
national laboratories.

The collaborative effort is part of a new pact between the two agencies, formed
in response to one of six education goals set by President Clinton and the
nation's governors, "that American students be the first in the world in
mathematics and science."

Shank will co-chair the committee with Dean Nafziger, director of the
Department of Education's Far West Regional Laboratory.

The Department of Education's ten education laboratories conduct applied
research and development, and provide technical assistance to educators and
policymakers in the area of school reform. The labs have carried out leading
research on effective teaching practices, curriculum, instructional materials,
and evaluation tools.

The DOE laboratories are seen as an unparalleled resource of scientific content
and process, according to Rollie Otto, who heads LBL's Center for Science and
Engineering Education.

"The nation's schools and students can benefit from improved quality in content
and instruction through our working together," Otto says. "It's a powerful
concept."

Representatives of the two departments held their first steering committee
meeting in Washington on September 20. Department of Education committee
members included Assistant Secretary Sharon P. Robinson of the Office of
Educational Research and Improvement, and Linda Roberts, the Secretary's
special advisor on Educational Technology. DOE participants included Martha
Krebs, director of the Office of Energy Research, and Terry Cornwell Rumsey,
director of the Office of Science Education and Technical Information.

PHOTO CAPTION -- In the Mac Training Room, Lawrence Lawler of LBL's Center
for Science and Engineering Education (CSEE) helps a visitor from the
Science Education Academy of the Bay Area (SEABA) get acquainted with
Mosaic. SEABA is housed at the Far West Regional Laboratory, one of the
Department of Education labs that will be part of the new energy/education
compact. Photo by Steve Adams

Energy Awareness Month

Saving money: As easy as flipping a switch

Contributed by Antonia Reaves

Did you know there are several easy ways to save money at LBL
that also help preserve our natural resources and environment? Turning off
unneeded electrical equipment saves dollars that could be used to pay for other
support needs. It also saves energy, thereby reducing fossil fuel consumption
and carbon emissions at electricity generating plants.

Just turning off a computer monitor every night before going home could save
almost $40 a year (savings depend on monitor size and whether it is color).
When multiplied by the estimated 1,200 computer monitors left on all the time
at the Lab, the savings could be significant.

Unfortunately, screen savers save only a small amount of energy since they do
not shut off the monitor. Turning off a computer monitor will not interfere
with telecommuting, nightly back-up of hard disks, or audio notification of
e-mail messages (any more than turning off a TV keeps a VCR from recording a
program). Devices are even available that will shut down a computer monitor
automatically after a specified time delay.

When purchasing a new PC, monitor, or printer, consider whether an Energy Star
compliant product might be available that fits your needs. Energy Star
equipment has electrical power management features that shut down various
internal systems when they are idle. The features do not add to the cost of the
equipment.

Turning off idle copiers and printers would offer an estimated $30,000 in
electrical savings annually (assuming 20 percent of networked printers are on).
In addition, copying or printing on both sides whenever possible saves not only
the cost of the paper but also the energy to produce the paper.

Closing fume hoods when they are not needed is yet another way to reap
significant energy and cost savings at the Lab--estimated at more than $200,000
annually. Open fume hoods typically use both electrical and thermal energy.

Using the above-mentioned strategies, we have an estimated potential energy
savings at LBL of more than 3,000,000 kilowatt hours of electricity and 330,000
therms of gas; enough energy to power and heat approximately 450 homes in
California. Cost savings of approximately $270,000 annually would pay salaries
for almost eight people earning $35,000 a year.

If you are interested in attaching a device to your computer monitor that will
turn off your monitor after a specified delay time, please contact Toni Reaves
at In-House Energy Management (X7228). If you would like more information about
the savings from Energy Star equipment, please contact Mary Ann Piette in the
Energy Analysis Program (X6286).

N E W S W I R E

AMTEX AT LBL:

Craig Fong and the LBL Engineering Division hosted the third Amtex
Partnership quarterly meeting for the Computer Aided Fabric Evaluation (CAFE)
Project at LBL on September 21. The year-old partnership is a collaborative
effort between the integrated American textile industry and five DOE national
laboratories. With the help of the national laboratories, the industry
participants are now able to harness technical capabilities which were
previously considered too complex or too expensive. LBL's contribution to the
CAFE Project will be the development of sensor technologies and systems
integration for the automation of the fabric inspection process along with
Argonne, Oak Ridge, Lawrence Livermore and Sandia national laboratories. Some
of these technologies were shown at the Bobbin Show held in Atlanta on
September 26-29. Other Engineering Division participants were Leslie Cobb,
Jan DeVries, Don Foster, Dell Louie, and Rajinder Singh.

Exhibit showcases art from a turbulent era

By Mike Wooldridge, MAWooldridge@lbl.gov

A major retrospective of African-American art--created by LBL
Photo Lab technician Joe Moore--is now on exhibit at San Francisco State
University.

Moore, a graduate student in SFSU's Interdisciplinary Arts program, has
organized "Black Power/Black Art," an exhibition of political images from the
African-American arts movement of the 1960s and '70s. The exhibition is part of
Moore's master's degree program, which he has pursued for the past two years
with help from LBL's Tuition Reimbursement Program.

"Black Power/Black Art" features more than 70 photographs, paintings, prints,
collages and other works from 37 artists, some of whom are recognized
worldwide, while others are relatively unknown outside the African-American art
community. Raymond Saunders, an internationally-known artist whose works sell
for hundreds of thousands of dollars, spent two days at the exhibit space
creating a mixed-media display called "What is Black Art." It is one of the
exhibition's highlights.

To bring together the unprecedented gathering of artists and their works, Moore
worked with Samella Lewis, the foremost authority on African-American art of
that period. Lewis is a professor emerita at the Claremont Colleges in Southern
California.

More than 1,000 people showed up for the exhibit's September opening. It
included a symposium featuring experts on all aspects of art in the
African-American community--from "revolutionary" Black theater to the role of
music in social change. "It was the largest opening the department has ever
had," Moore says.

He says the retrospective was in many ways a culmination of work he began more
than 20 years ago, when he entered the Black arts scene as a photographer for
magazines such as Ebony and Jet.

"I was constantly covering stories on the art that was going on in the Black
community," he says. "The exhibition was a chance to put that whole period of
my life into a historical context."

Much of the art featured at the exhibit, Moore says, represents an attempt by
African-American artists to break away from the European aesthetic that up to
then had dominated the country's art scene. "African American artists were
trying to define for themselves what it meant to be Black in America."

"I hope people will learn from the exhibit that there was a lot happening in
the Black community back then," he says. "People remember the riots. But there
were much deeper issues being examined, too, and that is what this show is all
about."

Moore says he hopes to use his experience to organize future art projects,
although he sees himself more comfortable promoting art in the local community
than in the halls of academia.

The "Black Power/Black Art" exhibition runs until October 21 at SFSU's Art
Department Gallery, open Monday through Friday from noon to 4 p.m. If there is
enough interest, Moore will try to arrange for a special opening for Lab
employees during non-work hours. Call Moore at X5731 for more information.

PHOTO CAPTION -- LBL photo technician Joe Moore has staged a major exhibit of
African-American art at San Francisco State University. Photo by Steve Adams

Grand view

PHOTO CAPTION -- A group of 20 members of Berkeley Seniors in Retirement (SIRs)
get an eyeful atop the concrete shielding during a September 19 tour of the Advanced Light
Source. The tour was coordinated by LBL Community Relations, and SIRs member
Don Kulick, an LBL retiree. Art Robinson of AFRD led the tour. The group was
also given a tour of the 88-Inch Cyclotron by Peggy McMahan of the Nuclear
Science Division.Photo by Paul Hames

Blood drive

The next LBL blood drive is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 14, in the Bldg.
70A Main Conference Room. Hours will be from 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. All employees
are encouraged to donate. Refreshments will be provided.

Landfill anthropologist digs for the truth

By Jeffery Kahn, JBKahn@lbl.gov

One man's trash is another's treasure. That could be the credo of
William L. Rathje, the University of Arizona anthropologist who transformed the
study of garbage and landfills into a science.

Rathje, who is renowned for his landfill "digs," visited LBL on August 29 and
30 to give two noontime talks at the invitation of LBL waste minimization
specialist Shelley Worsham. He also did a "garbage audit" of the Laboratory's
waste.

Rathje began his study of fresh garbage in 1973, providing some of the first
hard data to policy makers in the field of solid waste management. In 1987, he
expanded his research, investigating exactly what has been filling up the
nation's landfills. After seven years of "landfill diving," he said he has been
able to dispel a number of myths.

Much of the debate about minimizing solid waste has focused on three types of
garbage: disposable diapers, fast food packaging, and polystyrene foam (such as
Styrofoam). According to conventional wisdom, they constitute a major part of
the volume of landfills.

"I call this the `emperor's new clothes,'" Rathje said. "We think they are
there, but it turns out they are not. Altogether, they add up to less than
three percent of the volume of a landfill."

The belief that plastics compose 30 percent by volume of a landfill is another
myth. According to his research, plastic takes up only 15 percent by volume.

"Somewhat surprisingly, this percentage has not changed over the past 20 years.
Yes, there is more plastic waste, but the overall weight of plastic has
decreased. Manufacturers are making more lightweight plastic to decrease
shipping and material costs."

Rathje's investigation of 15 municipal landfills found that construction debris
composed at least 20 percent by volume of these sites. Most of this
debris--concrete, lumber, rebar--is reusable and should be recycled, he said.

The volume of newspapers in landfills ranges from 12 to 18 percent. Rathje's
investigation shows that the high concentrations of lead in landfill leachate
decreased tenfold after 1987, when newspaper publishers began using lead-free
inks.

Rathje said his digs also confirm that recycling works. The volume of
newspapers, aluminum cans, glass, and cardboard going into a landfill drops
significantly when these items are made part of a curbside pickup and recycling
program.

A number of states, including California, have mandated dramatic reductions in
the volume of solid waste going into landfills. Rathje said California would
have a very difficult time meeting a target of a 50-percent reduction through
recycling alone.

"My most optimistic prediction is that 40 percent of U.S. waste could be
recycled one day," he said. "I believe source reduction--as when newspaper
publishers eliminated lead from their inks--must also be part of the answer.
Ultimately, we must generate less waste."

Rathje said LBL is doing a good job of waste minimization, recycling about 40
percent of its solid waste. One of his recommendations for LBL was that
employees separate out white paper for recycling (the paper must be put in
metal waste cans). Sutta Company, which handles the Lab's office waste, already
sorts and recycles about 85 percent, much of it white paper. For more
information on recycling, contact Worsham at X6123.

Patent Department: In answer to your question...

From time to time, the attorneys and patent agents in LBL's Patent
Department receive questions from individual researchers, the answers to which
may be of interest to others in the Laboratory. If you have questions for the
Patent Department, call X7058.

Q: Why are lab notebooks so important to the patent process?

A: They may determine who is entitled to a patent.

Humble, coffee-stained lab notebooks become important when two (or more)
unaffiliated inventors claim to have invented the same object or process. They
help determine which person or group is entitled to the patent.

Generally, the first inventor is the person who first conceives of an
invention, provided that this person is "diligent" from a time prior to
conception of the invention by a second inventor, to the time that the first
inventor reduces the invention to practice. The inventor must not only
diligently (actively) pursue reducing the conception to practice, but must also
be able to prove his diligence by convincing evidence (i.e., the lab
notebook).

Therefore, LBL researchers should maintain detailed logs of their activities,
with statements showing that these activities have been understood and
witnessed by others. This is necessary to show each step, on an almost
day-by-day basis, of the effort to reduce their conception to practice.

Diligence does not mean that each step taken must be successful. It does mean
that an inventor may not turn his attention to other things for any significant
period of time. Such inattention likely will prevent a finding of the diligence
required to tie reduction to practice of the invention back to the earliest
date of conception of the invention.

With a constructive reduction to practice (where the invention is not actually
built or tried and tested), the patent attorney or agent's efforts to prepare
and file the patent application must be diligent.

In some instances, such as the discovery of genes, an inventor is unable to
establish a conception until he has reduced the invention to practice through a
successful experiment. This situation is termed simultaneous conception and
reduction to practice.

Union vote coming up

Oct. 17 - Nov. 14, 1994, is the election period during which Technical
Unit employees (Unit 9) decide if they do or do not want to be represented
exclusively by the University Professional & Technical Employees (UPTE)
union.

The Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) will mail secret ballots to the
homes of employees eligible to vote. As a simple majority of those who vote
will win the election, LBL's most compelling message to technical employees is
to vote. If UPTE wins the election, all technical employees will be
bound by the terms of the labor contract, even if they do not vote. The
Laboratory is encouraging employees to vote "NO REPRESENTATION." Your vote may
decide the election! Remember to return your ballot as soon as
possible--they must be received by PERB no later than 3 p.m., Nov. 14,
1994.

Time to update telephone directory

Friday, Oct. 14, is the deadline for updating your LBL telephone
directory information for the upcoming edition. If you have not done so, please
complete the Directory Information Update Form that was mailed to you this
week. For those who will be listing personal information (home address, home
phone, etc.), or making changes to your current LBL listing, it is required
that you sign your update form to authorize the changes. Please return the
signed form to Telephone Services, Bldg. 50B-2267, or fax it to X7000. If you
have questions, contact the Telephone Services Office at X6234.

Seaborg to give Lewis Lecture at Zellerbach

Nobel Laureate, Glenn T. Seaborg, LBL's Associate Director at Large, will
give the G. N. Lewis Memorial Lecture at 4 p.m. on Wednesday,
Oct. 19, in UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Auditorium. He will speak on "Ten New
Elements and Ten Presidents." All employees are invited to attend.

The Gilbert Newton Lewis Memorial Lecture has been given annually since 1954.
Dr. Seaborg gave the lecture in 1956, and is the only person to give the
lecture more than once.

Ski lift vouchers on sale

The Employee's Buying Service is once again offering discount vouchers
for adult ski lift tickets to Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows. The vouchers are
good any day during the ski season.

For Squaw Valley, the vouchers are $37 (regular price $43). For Alpine Meadows,
vouchers are $34 (regular price $40). Unused vouchers can be returned for
credit towards next year's purchase with full credit.

The Buying Service is taking prepaid orders only. Employees with credits from
last year should deduct the dollar amount for this year's purchase. Deadlines
for orders are Wednesday, Oct. 26, for Squaw Valley, and Friday, Nov. 18, for
Alpine Meadows. Vouchers will be mailed to employees about two weeks after the
deadline date. To order, fill out the form and mail payment to Pamela
Stevens.